Four former officers of Paracelsus Healthcare Corp. have agreed to pay a combined $250,000 in fines to settle allegations by the Securities and Exchange Commission that they fraudulently overstated the Houston-based hospital chain's earnings during the mid-1990s.

In a civil complaint filed Monday with a federal district court in Houston, the SEC accused the former officers of establishing a "cookie jar" of reserves that the company later reversed to mask declining profit. The complaint further accused them of...